Photothermal therapy and radiotherapy of Bi2S3-GNRs hybrid nanoparticles in treatment of breast cancer

Radiotherapy (RT) is one of the main methods of breast cancer treatment that can be used alone or together with other therapy methods. Also, photothermal therapy (PTT) has attracted attention as another modality in tumor treatment. Recently, combination therapy has been proposed as a new alternative approach to increase the effectiveness of cancer therapy. On the other side, the investigations on the use of metal-based hybrid nanoparticles (MHNs) simultaneously as a radiosensitizer and a photothermal agent in the case of combination of RT and PTT have been increased to enhance the efficiency of cancer treatment too. In this research, Bi₂S₃ NPs, gold nanorods (GNRs) and their hybrid (GNRs-Bi₂S₃ as new MHNs) were synthesized. Then, the quality control tests were confirmed the successful synthesis of NPs and GNRs-Bi₂S₃ hybrid. Next, the likely enhanced effect of combination of RT (at two X-ray doses of 2 and 6 Gy) and PTT (at 808 nm wavelength with 1500 mW power) using of Bi₂S₃-GNRs hybrid (at 3 concentrations of 50, 100 and 200 µg/ml) was investigated for breast cancer therapy in comparison with alone Bi₂S₃ NPs or GNRs in single therapy of RT or PTT. The cell viability test showed a significant reduction at all tested concentrations of Bi₂S₃-GNRs hybrid after single therapy method of RT or PTT. The synthesized hybrid was even more effective in case of combination therapy method compared to use of each of modalities or NPs alone especially at concentration of 200 µg/ml and X-ray dose of 6 Gy. In summary, our novel hybrid showed enhanced effectiveness in killing of breast cancerous cells as MHNs in combination therapy method of RT and PTT.